New fitness push for Makos [Nelson Mail]
The Tasman Makos are noted for their commitment to playing a positive, attacking style of rugby.
It's not always successful, although they've attracted a lot of support in recent seasons for their entertaining, up-tempo approach.
With that approach comes certain responsibilities. Plainly speaking, if the players aren't up to the mark physically, the Makos' game plan is seriously compromised.
A key figure in that conditioning process this season has been the Tasman union's new fitness and conditioning coach Jeremy McIlroy. Having cut his teeth with the Nelson College First XV, with whom he's still associated, McIlroy's progressed through the Nelson Bays and Tasman B ranks as trainer and has now been handed the baton from Simon Thomas, who's ended four seasons with the union's NPC side.
Along with strength trainer Glenn Stewart and sprint coach Brodie Hewlett, McIlroy's busy knocking this season's latest crop of Makos into shape and so far at least, he's been delighted with the response and the results.
Despite some early questions about the pace and quality of the local club play, McIlroy's overseen a structured preseason programme designed to have the entire squad on the same page come their August 17 NPC season kickoff against Southland in Invercargill.
"Glenn and I have been working with them since December, primarily on strength work, and we've just been getting into a bit more of a conditioning component in the past three weeks," McIlroy said.
As Tasman's head coach, Kieran Keane has provided some essential guidelines.
"We've gone over the game plan and how [Keane] wants to play this year and it's fairly close to what we've been doing in the past. You have to be very conditioned to be a part of that and to keep up with that so if you want to earn your spot, you'd better be fit and if you're not, then you might find yourself on the bench.
"If the guys aren't fit, they just won't keep up with this style of play, so it's our priority to make sure they're at a certain conditioning level to make sure that happens, otherwise KK won't be too happy with me."
While there are a number of new faces among the contracted players, McIlroy said they'd been impressed by the support and attitude of the experienced players and their leadership in the critical preseason phase.
"All in all the work ethic and the way that the guys are going about their training outside of rugby has been phenomenal, we're really impressed with them. They're really adopting the new kind of style that Glenn and I both bring to the training, it's a bit different to what they're used to.
"Just the strength component with what Glenn does, it's a little bit different. We have a bit of a focus towards Olympic lifting that we probably haven't done in the past and that's really shone through in a lot of the guys' power development.
"We're talking fairly heavy weights, stuff that they're not quite used to. It's a bit uncomfortable for them.
"They feel quite sore for a little bit, but at the end of the day, it's coming through in their test results that these guys are getting some really good gains from it so we're sticking with it and we're quite happy with how that's going."
They've also incorporated some "strong-man" elements into the training, like flipping tyres and ropes, lifting kegs and pulling sleds, to add some variety and help maintain focus.
"We're really happy with where they are and where their head space is. They're really keen and there's a good buzz about the whole training group - the high performance group as well as the contracted guys - and we're looking to have a really good year.
"We've laid a really good foundation this year. We got our hands on them quite early so we're quite excited to see how those guys will pan out."
- © Fairfax NZ News
